Its a Booths Live Cook with Three Dishes to Get Your Teeth Into
This is what I do, I develop recipes, and because Foodie Book Club is in partnership with Booths, I get to use their supplier’s fabulous produce to cook with.
Even more fun, I get to do it live with the help of my work bubble partner Lizzie from Peachy Digital.
The 23rd of January is the date for this month’s live cook, and this month I’ve been given some fabulous fresh ingredients to play around with, including amazing Yorkshire forced rhubarb as well as Flower Sprouts, which, if you’ve not tried before, get straight to the market and get a couple of bags.
I didn’t know a lot about Yorkshire forced rhubarb, except that I love it, so I thought I’d better get to know some facts about it before I used it.
Where else do I go to when gathering facts, Wikipedia of course.
The Rhubarb Triangle is just a nine-mile area in West Yorkshire and this is where the famous forced rhubarb comes from.
The only fact that I did know about rhubarb was that it didn’t originate from England, but is from the far-flung Siberia which is why it loves Yorkshire weather.
Well, let’s face it, not too many long, sunny evenings in Yorkshire, in the middle of winter.
At one time, Yorkshire birthed about 90% of winter forced rhubarb into the world.
Not sure what the numbers are right now, but I know I’ve use least four bunches developing this recipe.
Not complaining, and neither is the lovely Mr G.
Why is the rhubarb called forced rhubarb?
After spending two years unharvested in the fields of Yorkshire, after the rhubarb has seen a frost, the plants then get to hang out in sheds in complete darkness.
Very dramatic!
In the darkness, the roots convert all of the stored carbohydrates into glucose, and that’s why it’s more tender that ordinary rhubarb and has a unique sour-sweet flavour.
Now here’s the best thing I’ve read about Yorkshire force rhubarb, it’s picked in candlelight. Yup, I didn’t believe it either.
Apparently if the rhubarb is exposed to strong daylight, it stops growing.
Fascinating.
All this happens before the end of March, so don’t waste any time getting your hands on some.
Of course, I’m not going to forget the Whole Garlic Roast Chicken with Orange & Bacon, the third of the dishes I’ll be tussling with on Saturday.
Using a whole garlic bulb in the cooking may sound like an over kill, but when roasted with the chicken, the garlic flavour changes from a tongue tickling burn, to a smooth and creamy subtle taste.
Trust me, you’ll be fighting over who gets to mop up the delicious cooking juices. I’d recommend that you pour them over the rest of your meal and get into it.
If you can’t make the live cook on Saturday 11am, you can watch again on our Foodie Book Club YouTube channel, where you’ll find so many other great live cooking from amazing top chefs.
Spicy Flower Sprouts with Ginger, Shallots & Almonds
Look at the colour of these beautiful sprouts
What You Need
Booths Flower Sprouts 2 x 400g bags – Washed & any hard ends cut off – See Tip Box
Coconut Oil x 4 heaped tablespoon
Fresh Red Chillies x 1- Very finely chopped or grated. See Tip Box
Large Garlic Cloves x 2- Very finely chopped or grated
Fresh Ginger x 1inch – peeled & Very finely chopped or grated– See Tip Box
Banana Shallots x 4 – Very finely chopped
Sliced /Flaked Almonds x 50g
Little nuggets of green goodness
How It’s Done
Heat a large frying pan up on a medium heat. When hot, tip in the sliced almonds and cook until they are a golden brown (shaking occasionally). Set aside until needed. – See Tip Box
In the same pan, on a medium heat, heat the coconut oil until melted and warm.
Add the prepared chilli, shallots, ginger & garlic to the hot oil and cook on a low heat until the shallots are translucent - stirring occasionally.
Add all of the prepared flower sprouts to the hot pan of shallots etc and give it a good mix around to coat them all with the rest of the mixture.
Let them cook on a medium heat, stirring regularly so they don’t burn.
Cook until they are cooked but still have a bit of a bite.
Transfer all of the contents of the pan to a serving dish and then sprinkle with the toasted almonds to serve.
Grate the chilli and ginger if you can.
Tip Box
Chilies –1) I like a little heat in my food sometimes. This is not one of those times. I used 1 chili in the recipe just to add even more flavour, but if you want the heat, add as many as you want.
2) – An easy way to make sure your chilli is very fine, is to freeze them and then grate them as soon as you take them out of the freezer while they’re still frozen.
Ginger – Peel ginger the easy way. Use a small spoon to scrape away the thin skin.
Flower Sprouts – 1) When preparing the flower sprouts, cut off any really hard ends, but don’t go crazy. Chop just a little so as not to waste too much. They will go nice and soft in the cooking.
2) No Need to chop in half, even if they seem a little on the large side, it’s nice to have a varied size and a varied crunch when eating them.
Almonds- When toasting the almonds, don’t take your eyes off them. They go from white to burnt very quickly.
Rhubarb, Pistachio & Honey Galette with Orange & Gin Gluten Free Pastry
Serve with the biggest dollop of orange mascarpone you can get.
What You Need
Gluten Free Plain Flour x 560gm
Golden Caster Sugar – 150gm Plus extra for sprinkling.
Salted Butter 250gm – Straight from the fridge and cut up into small pieces
Xanthan Gum Powder x 2tsp – See Tip Box
Gluten Free Baking Powder x 1 ½ tsp
Gin – 6-10 tbsp – See Tip Box
The Rind of 2 x Large Seville Oranges
Pistachios – Shelled & roughly chopped x 200gm
Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb x 1 Bunch – Cleaned & chopped up into ½ inch pieces–See Tip Box
Madagascar Vanilla- 1 tbsp
Runny Honey – 8tbsp
Large Egg x 1 – For Egg Wash
Pastry, out of the fridge and cut into portions
To Serve
Mascarpone x 1 Pot
The Rind of 2 x Large Seville Oranges
How It’s Done
Place the flour, 100gm castor sugar, baking powder & xanthan gum powder & orange peel from two oranges in a food processor and blend for 10 seconds.
While the food processor is still running, add all the butter, one piece at a time. Keep the processor running until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs.
Add two tablespoons of gin while the processor is still running. Keep adding tablespoons of the gin, one at a time, until the pastry comes together into one lump. – See Tip Box
Wrap the pastry in cling film and set aside in the fridge until needed.
Cover oven proof trays with non-/stick kitchen paper and heat the oven to 180c.
Cut the pastry into eight pieces and roll them into balls.
Roll out each piece of pastry into rough circles and place them onto the baking trays.
Share the chopped pistachios between all the pastry circles, placing them in the centre so you have little piles of nuts in each one.
Spoon 1 tablespoon of the honey on top of the nuts
Share the pieces of rhubarb out between the tarts so they sit on top of the nuts and then roughly fold the rest of the pastry up and around the centre piles leaving a gap in the centre so you can see the rhubarb–See Tip Box
Break the egg into a cup, give it a whisk with a fork to loosen it up and then liberally brush the pastry tops of the pies.
Sprinkle lots of the golden castor sugar on top of the rhubarb and around the pastry on top of the egg wash.
Place the trays with the galette into the hot oven and bake until each of the pies are a deep golden brown and the middle is piping hot – See Tip Box
To Serve
Place the mascarpone into a medium bowl, along with the zest of two of the oranges.
Mix together really well and then dollop on top of the galettes just before serving.
Roughly roll out the pastry, not too thin.
Tip Box
Gin – How much gin you use in the pastry will vary depending on a lot of factors, so it’s difficult to tell you exactly how much to use.
Xanthan Gum Powder – If you have to bake gluten free, this is a tiny box of magic powder you’ll be wanting to use in all of your baking. Its helps to bind the flour instead of gluten in normal flour.
Pastry – 1) If you don’t have a food processor, no problem. Add the same dry ingredients to a large bowl and then cut in the cold butter with a knife until you get breadcrumbs. Once this is done, use the gin to bind together.
Rhubarb – 1) If there are any leaves on the rhubarb, get rid of them. Rhubarb leaves are very poisonous.
Cooking- All ovens are different so adjust cooking time accordingly
Whole Garlic Roast Chicken with Orange & Bacon.
A beauty to behold
What You Need
Whole Medium Chickens x 1 – Cleaned and dried – See Tip Box
The Rind & Juice from 2 x Large Seville Oranges - See Tip Box
Large Garlic Bulbs x 2
Packs of Bacon Lardons x 2
Maldon Seat Salt – To Taste
Fresh Ground Black Pepper – To Taste
How It’s Done
Heat the oven to 180c.
Place the prepared chicken into an oven proof dish or pot that is large enough to give the chicken plenty of room.
Cut the garlic bulb in half lengthways and take out all of the garlic from the skin and scatter the cloves on top of and around the chicken.
Sprinkle the bacon lardons around the chicken.
Pour the orange juice, orange zest and any bit of the orange flesh directly over the chicken.
Sprinkle Maldon sea salt over the chicken skin and put lots of black pepper over the chicken skin too
Place a lid on the pot. If you don’t have a lid for the pot, no problem, See Tip Box
Place the chicken in the hot oven and cook until 20-30 minutes before the chicken is cooked–See Tip Box
Cook the chicken uncovered for the last 20-30 minutes of cooking or until the chicken is piping hot all the way through and the skin is a crisp golden brown.
To Serve
Either serve straight from the pot of transfer to a serving dish and pour all of the garlic, bacon and juices over the chicken.
Look at those pan juices. Oh my!
Tip Box
Chicken – 1) Clean and prepare the chicken and pat it dry with kitchen roll.
2) If you don’t have a lid that loosely fits your pot, take a large piece of foil and make a concertina fold in the middle of it so that it can expand when the pot heats up, and use this to cover the chicken.
3) Each oven is different so adjust the cooking time accordingly.
Oranges- When you squeeze the oranges, don’t get rid of all of the bits of flesh that comes off it. These are tiny bits of flavour.
